Effective Instruction for Students with Developmental Disabilities

Dear Colleagues,

A teacher’s primary role is to be a pedagogical expert. To develop instructional expertise, a teacher must acquire knowledge about a wide range of instructional strategies that address the characteristics of thinking and learning relevant to their students. Students with developmental disabilities who require extensive support require systematic instruction that accounts for their relatively slower rate of learning, and challenges maintaining and generalizing learned content.

Additionally, this instruction must address both academic and functional content, as these students’ condition adversely affects their academic achievement and the development of adaptive behaviors. Furthermore, the students benefit from highly structured environmental arrangements that target their intrinsic cognitive load (i.e., the content they must learn) while minimizing their extraneous cognitive load (i.e., any matter that impairs a student’s ability to concentrate on their targeted learning outcome, such as background noise or excessive teacher talk). Consequently, teachers must be aware of strategies for designing and operating safe and orderly classrooms that facilitate the presentation of effective instructional strategies.

This topical collection aims to inform readers about effective instruction for students with developmental disabilities who require substantial support (e.g., autism involving level 2 or 3 supports). Entries should address evidence-based instructional and classroom management strategies that are effective in improving student outcomes.

Dr. Timothy E. Morse
Collection Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Topical Collection website. Review articles and Entry papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Encyclopedia is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• developmental disabilities
• students with extensive support needs
• systematic instruction
• evidence-based practices
• adaptive behavior
• environmental arrangement
• classroom management